i3 - July/August 2017 - 40

Policy

By Jeremy Snow

T EC H H U B

AngelPad

or the startup accelerator, AngelPad, the best is saved
for last. After three intense months of nonstop work,
each of the 12 businesses to go through the program
must give a three-minute presentation on their business to
nearly 200 investors ready to make a connection. Demo Day,
as the accelerator calls it, is the finale to one of the world's
most successful tech accelerator programs.

For more than 10 years, AngelPad has
made a name for itself by turning budding businesses into startup starlets.
It has taken in more than 130 companies
and led to $550 million in funding. It was
also the #1 accelerator in the U.S. in 2015,
according to a study by MIT and Brown
University. Co-founders Thomas Korte
and Carine Magescas, who are also husband and wife, lead the intense program.
"At AngelPad Carine and Thomas
work alongside the startup founders
every day," says AngelPad. "We roll up
our sleeves and figure stuff out - everything - together with the founders."

Paintzen

When Paintzen Co-founder and
COO Justin Geller joined Angelpad
in 2013, he and his co-workers already
had a strong foundation for their business. Still, Korte and Magescas immediately impressed him with the amount
of expertise and personalized advice
they gave the business. Paintzen helps
connect painters to consumers online
by providing quotes, booking and help with the payment process. Over the next
three months, Geller and
his team fleshed out and
solidified every part of their
business, from development
to managing employees
and contractors. By Demo
Day, the team had perfected
a concise business pitch
and received a swarm
of meetings and interest
from investors.
40

JULY/AUGUST 2017

Frinault is still great friends with many
of the other founders he worked with
to find funding.
"We learned how to think about
our company from an investor's perspective," Frinault says. "We learned
how to pitch to them effectively and
answer the question: Why should they
invest their time and money into the
"Because it is such a small group,
solution we're trying to build?"
the three months are packed with
Fieldwire, an app construction workers
one-on-one meetings and daily feeduse to create projects, has grown since
back that taught us how to strengthen
Angelpad. They quad-rupled their team's
the core elements of our business,"
size and increased revenue tenfold in the
Geller says. "We came out as a much
past year and a half, Frinault adds. This
stronger company after those months,
January they reached more than 100,000
and it was thanks to
projects. Now they are
Thomas and Carine."
continuing to apply what
Their close work
they learned to expand
We learned
with AngelPad paid off -
their product offering and
Paintzen raised a total
create partnerships with
how to think
of $7.2 million in 2015.
more companies serving
about our
Today, they continue to
company from the construction space.
raise revenues and plan
"I remember Thomas
an investor's
to debut their offering into
told us to be both aggresperspective. sive when negotiating deal
an additional eight cities,
-Yves Frinault, Fieldwire.
expanding their reach.
terms and frugal in how
we run our company day
to day," he says. "If you can
Fieldwire
do both of those things
Fieldwire CEO Yves
well, you can focus on exeFrinault not only met his
cution and create a commentors at AngelPad, but
pany that provides value,
also joined a supportive
which will effectively set
community that helped
you up for success."
him each step of the way.

Close work with
Anglepad has paid off for
the team at Fieldwire.
They have increased revenue tenfold in the past
year and a half.

I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

http://angelpad.org http://www.paintzen.com http://www.fieldwire.com

i3 - July/August 2017

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